Horizon School

Horizon School (半島中學) is a fictional school and research project made by flutters in 2018 located in 8 Ap Lei Chau Praya Road, Hong Kong (Present Day Larvotto) to simulate her own school bus routes with her bus company Joyful Bus with school buses branching to Ap Lei Chau, Southern Hong Kong and Hong Kong Island.

During the run time of the Tsz Kong Political Simulator the school was part of Tsz Kong and The Tsz Kong International Schools Foundation (TKISF) within the same simulator.

With this project, members have asked flutters for fictional school timetables which are still available to request.

Research Project

In August 2021 the school's name was taken for the name for flutters' timetable project as she tried to answer why there were two teachers that taught a subject (eg. once a week a different teacher teaches English) and why there was two rooms allocated through the same subject (eg. once a week English is taught in a different room).

Creation

The project was based on a Minecraft school with hollowed spaces being converted to classrooms (maximising room in lieu of decor) and later (re)built buildings from April 2021until March 2023 replacing all prior buildings in the original world.

The overview (ie. subject block timetable, eg. when Year 10 are doing English, Year 7 are doing maths) was created first.

The rooming system was simple following B101 style (Block)(Floor)(Room)(Room) for maximum efficiency.

To achieve the easiest non-complex timetabling methods, IGCSE were limited to four subject blocks (Arts, Humanities, Language and Wildcard from the previous three) and A-Levels (Established in 2021) were limited to four subject blocks as well with 3-4 subjects needing to be chosen (Art 1, Art 2, Humanities 1, Humanities 2) with subjects which did not fit the two criteria to be fitted in externally (eg. science classes spread between Art 1, Art 2 and Humanities 1) as to achieve maximum student requirements this requires timetabling software (which is paid)

The timetabling was done on Google Sheets with autonomous functions added to the timetable slowly (Eg. Overview of all teachers, finding cover etc.)

Findings

The conclusions of why this happens lead to the following findings.

Teachers

1. The teacher has an external clash as they are teaching a subject that is outside of their normal subject block (or teaches two subjects in different blocks) leading to those clashing. Thus requiring a teacher to cover their clashed class.
   • Eg. English and Media (Arts) take different subject blocks, perhaps during Year 10 English, Year 12 Media would be on the same block leading to a clash as typically English and The Arts do not need to be separate blocks as they are taught by different teachers but in this scenario a teacher teaches both.
   • Eg. A teacher teaches PSHE (tutor time) once a week to their tutor group and requires them to be teaching this during a time where they would have been teaching another class. Thus resulting in a clash.
2. The department has an internal clash that affects typical cycles. Thus requiring a teacher to cover their clashed class.
   • Eg. Year 7 English and Year 10 English are typically not taught during the same period other than one period a week, leading to a clash
     1. This is typically to maximise English Teacher's periods but accommodate Year 7/10's other periods
3. The department has requested such
   • Eg. A-Level have requested that one teacher teaches half the curriculum and the other teacher teaches the other to the same year group/class
4. Office hours lead to main teacher being unavailable
   • Eg. Part-Time teacher does not work Wednesdays, leading to any classes taught on Wednesdays have to be 'covered' by another teacher

Rooms

1. Teacher does not have a primary room. Thus borrowing a different room (potentially by the period).
   • In subjects such as Sports Studies or when teachers of Senior Leadership are leading classes it is not uncommon to see them being allocated other rooms as typically those teachers would not have classrooms of their own
2. Teacher teaches different subjects and requires a room that has the required equipment.
   • For example, a Drama Teacher teaching English requires a English Room and not a Drama Studio.
3. Primary room is in use due to the any of the above, as it created a low frequency clash.
   • For example, a member of Senior Leadership is teaching IGCSE History (5 periods a fortnight) in a language room, and the teacher of the primary room has a Year 7 class (2 periods a week). Hypothetically, if Year 7 French were to clash with IGCSE History once a fortnight, the timetable administrator would prioritise IGCSE History being in the language room as it establishes not only the Senior Member being used to that room and the students to remember the room for History; it also solidifies Year 7 with a different room once a week (though different to primary teacher's room) so Year 7s would not get lost once a fortnight.

Present Day

The project continues yearly at each timetable handover to simulate a new school year, alongside optimising the timetable for the next academic year (eg. Fixing major clashes, like department internal clashes)

The school gets new rooms and blocks being added semi-regularly alongside autonomising different areas of the timetabling system (eg. Student Timetables).

Previously, this project was working alongside with Google (each teacher has one account) but has slowly decreased due to the cap on phone numbers and email addresses.

Students

Imagined to have 1050 students (6 houses, 7 year groups 7-13, one tutor per year group per house = 42 tutor groups * 25 students per tutor group), most new Year 7 students coming from Coastline Junior School.

Tsz Kong

Tsz Kong District Map (Numbered)

Horizon School was never formally registered as an institute (due to flutters' God/Jesus powers) but was mentioned at the start of 2022 asking on locations and using as a case in parliament for building approval.

The school was located in Blakewood (Numbered the 19th District on the map flutters made) just so the phone number for Horizon School, Tsz Kong would be +69 (19) 3714 2069 as a reference to the 19371 Cult, the weed number 420 and the funny number 69.

After the disband of Tsz Kong in January 2024, the school has since removed all reference to the political simulator location and have reinstated the imagined location of 8 Ap Lei Chau Praya Road, alongside removing all previous mentions of Tsz Kong in their lore.

Trivia

• Teachers in the system had actual names, as of present, most teachers are flutters' original characters with no lore (name only), but some teachers do have lore (like Lottie and Milly).
  • Previously flutters used a lot of fictional teachers from cartoons such as Ms Valerie/Fiona Frizzle (The Magic School Bus) as science teachers.
• The school bus system has yet to be established despite it commencing in 2018
  • This is due to the lack of buses the company owns as of current (based on physical model buses).
  • The school buses have had routes planned before but are undergoing a new redistribution in lieu of other buses joining the fleet.